More than £20,000 was awarded to residents in the Govan area of Glasgow to begin the environmental project which will start with the restoration of the former Lyceum cinema.A local housing group used a photograph from the 1940s of the picture house, located at the corner of on Govan Road and McKechnie Street, to return it to its former glory with a new facade.

My god i feel so old now.Stayed in Govan and the Lyceum was my first time going to the pictures when i was 4.Many moons ago.Remember going to the pictures on a saturday then over to the Lyceum Cafe for juice and a cake.....ah the memories *:)*

This seemed the best thread to post a note that Stuart Neville's website - the one that gives gap74 and I a bit of healthy competition in the old cinema stakes! - has just updated with some great photos of the interior of the Lyceum...

Pauline Goldsmith, an actress and writer who appeared in Peter Mullan's film The Magdalene Sisters, is to use her prize money to stage a performance in the Govan Lyceum, which is now the home of bingo.She will research its music hall history before creating a new work within the site.

"This place was once a hall where Irish escaping the famine and Highlanders escaping poverty used to literally sing for their supper. I hope to explore the ghosts of this amazing place," she said.The Creative Scotland Awards, now in their sixth year, are the most high-profile of all of the Scottish Arts Council's funds for individual artists. The awards give winners the freedom and time to work without financial concerns for a year.

The winning projects ranged from a new opera about the mysterious German feral child Kasper Hauser, new art for the nation's rail routes, and a performance installation at the old Govan Lyceum Theatre in Glasgow. Pauline Goldsmith, actor. Will stage an installation fusing vaudeville, cinema and bingo.

I hope her reseach into the building will tell her that this particular Lyceum was never a music hall or a theatre, being built in 1938 specifically as a cinema, on the site of the earlier, and much small Lyceum theatre which had 'went on fire' the year before...

"I'd just move on to the 'hot-air ballooning vigilante' stage of my career earlier than planned"

Looked at the pics on glasgow cinemas website and cannot believe that everything is still intact, remember going to see clash of the titans and atlantis circa 81' still have nightmares about that big octopus

We've just updated our website with a bunch of photos of the Lyceum...
The architect was CJ McNair, also reponsible for the Ascot, Anniesland, the Regal/ABC Sauchiehall St, the demolished Plaza in Govan, and many others.

A HISTORIC Glasgow cinema is being sold nine months after it was bought by a major bingo operator.

Gala snapped up The Lyceum in Govan when it took over rival County Bingo in a £64million deal in January.

Bosses then promised to to keep all bingo halls open after refurbishing them.

But nine months after the takeover, Gala has closed the bingo club and put the B-listed art deco cinema up for sale.

Scores of bingo players will now be bussed to an alternative Gala Bingo club in Pollok.

A spokeswoman for Gala Bingo said: "The 12 staff have been offered jobs at local Gala clubs and the members were kept informed.

"There's a free bus service which has been laid on for members to the Gala club in Pollok.

"The club closed because the cost of developing the building was not financially viable."

Experts say the historic picture house is now ripe for development after the opening of the Squinty Bridge.

And they believe it will be snapped up by developers as the area becomes a property hotspot.

The historic picture house opened in 1938 replacing the Lyceum Theatre which burned down in 1937.

Designed by McNair & Elder, it originally seated 2600 filmgoers and was then one of the first "super-cinemas" in the UK.

When it was sold to County in 1974, it was split into a bingo hall in the stalls and a smaller cinema in the balcony, which closed in January 1981.

Latterly, the building became so run down it was given a superficial facelift after Govan Housing Association draped a huge 60ft banner over its front with an image of the picture house in its heyday. The association took the action after being awarded more than £20,000 from Communities Scotland to improve the area.

Germaine Hahn, director said: "We put up the banner to signal what it could look like.

"We had hoped, and I'm sure Gala had hoped to do something with the building. However, I understand that has not been possible.

"We are still hopeful something good will come out of the building and would like to see it preserved for the community.

"We would like something to happen to it fairly quickly. The worst case scenario would be if it fell into further decline."

i was talking to hugo who owns the chippy a few doors down on the day of its closing about this same thing that the building has been left so long in a state that the cost to rebuild it isnt viable , i think the problem is that the value of the building , estimated profits at the site , and the overall cost of buying the business contributed to it, gala couldnt make up the cost of the rebuild in profits basically .....imo the smoking ban has affected the bingo trade a lot as during breaks people spent time indoors with the slot machines, now they have to go outside which probably would put people off